It is a known problem in modern cooking that foodstuffs, in particular meat or meatproducts, often fail to have a desirable appearance in terms of colour, crispness, aroma, etcetera after preparation and before consumption. More specifically, when preparing foodstuffs having a savoury taste, e.g. meat and meat products, full meals, meal components, harty snacks, it is often desired that the surface of the product, such as the upper side, has a nice baked, grilled or fried appearance, including a golden-brown color. Normally, this is obtained when cooking in the traditional way, in which the foodstuff is allowed for a certain amount of time to develop such a brown or golden brown appearance.
However, when such foodstuffs are prepared or heated in more modern style cooking, such as by microwave cooking, steam ovens, combisteamers, etcetera such a desired appearance will not or not sufficiently develop. Such methods of preparing meat or meatproducts are often used to prepare foodstuffs on large scale, such as canteens, hospitals, restaurants. Also, this problem may appear domestically with microwave cooking of meat and meat products. Yet another area where this problem may occur is in the preparation of half- or precooked foodstuffs intended as convenience products, which are often heated by the end user by microwave cooking.
A known manner of overcoming this problem is by applying a so-called browning agent to the foodstuff that is to be prepared prior to or during preparation (cooking). Such browning agents, as are known e.g. from U.S. Pat. No. 5,397,582 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,542, generally contain a mixture of carbohydrates which may have been treated by heating, pyrolysation, burning, etcetera. Optionally, other components such as peptides, amino acids, salt, herbs, spices, colors etcetera may also be present.
Although such browning agents may give satisfactory results, the manner of application of such browning agent to the foodstuff is not ideal. The browning agents, which can be obtained in the form of a powder or aqueous solution or dispersion, may be difficult to apply to the foodstuff in the dosage desired, in an even and hygienic way.